Text not wrapping properly (2000 (9.0.4402 SR-1))

Topic

New Reply

I know virtually nothing about Excel. However, in my law firm we periodically get Excel documents to work on, so we struggle through. I was given a document that should have been set up in Word or WordPerfect’s table format, but whoever created it did it in Excel. It was a list of legal cases and was entirely text-based, i.e., no math involved. There were 6 columns, with the far right column being a wide column with a long description.

The problem was that in some of the rows, the text in the right-hand column was not wrapping at the right edge of the column. It was going beyond the right margin and out of sight. Then eventually, it would wrap back to the left edge of the column, but some of the text was still out of view to the right.

I put my cursor in one of the problem cells, got to the Format Cells dialog box, clicked on the Alignment tab, and saw that the “Wrap Text” option was checked. Still, some of the text in that right column was out of view beyond the right edge. Is there some other control that needs to be in effect?

I apologize for not attaching the document. It’s confidential information and unfortunately I didn’t have time to create a version with changed names.

Thanks for whatever help you can offer.

Russ

Reply | Quote

Replies

Hi,
A couple of questions:
1. I take it from what you say that it’s not simply a case of the row height not being sufficient to display all the text – you’re actually unable to see text that is in between some of the text you can see?
2. Are there any hard carriage returns in the text? (i.e. someone typed Alt+Enter to force a line break but also applied word wrap) That can cause odd display of text on occasion. You may be able to tell if this is the case from the way the text breaks in the formula bar.
Hope that helps.

Reply | Quote

Hi, Rory.

1. Yes. (Very well-put, by the way.) A line of text is visible across the column, then it continues past the right edge of the column for several words that can’t be seen (out-of-view to the right), and then it wraps back to the left so that you can see the subsequent words.

2. I was afraid you might ask something like that. It’s possible there may be hard carriage returns, but I don’t know. I’m a rank beginner with Excel and don’t even know how to make things like carriage returns display (maybe similar to Word and WordPerfect?). The display I have now doesn’t show carriage returns, so I really don’t know. I would bet you that there probably are, however, because I don’t think the person who created the chart knows much about Excel either (blind leading the blind, etc.). I’ll take a look at the formula bar display to see if I can see any evidence of hard returns.

By the way, when I posted my question, I was at the office. However, now I’m home and so don’t have access to the document at this moment. I won’t be back at work until Sunday, so I’ll check the document again based on what you’ve told me. Thanks for taking the time to answer (and so fast, too).

Russ

Reply | Quote

You can search for hard returns as follows:

– select the offending column by clicking on its letter
– press control-f
– hold the alt key and (on the num pad) type 010
– let go of the alt key (you wont see anythiing appear, don’t panic )
– press Find Next.

XL should highlight a cell that contains any hard return(s).

Reply | Quote

Thank you, Jan Karel. Sorry for the delay in responding. I was out of the office the last two days.

Russ

Reply | Quote

Is the missing text scrolled off the screen? Try using the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen to scroll to the right and see if it is there.

StuartR

Reply | Quote

You can open the Excel file in Word and get a Word table of the contents

Reply | Quote

Thanks, Paul. I’ll add that to my list! I appreciate your response.

Russ

Reply | Quote

Hi, Stuart. No, unfortunately the text wasn’t out-of-view because of scrolling. But thanks for your thoughts.

Russ

Reply | Quote